Archive for the ‘Sexuality’ Category

A Life of Unlearning – A Journey to Find the Truth is Australia’s Brokeback Mountain and Ted Haggard stories rolled into one. It’s a behind the scenes look into the life of a high profile preacher who, believing being gay made him unacceptable to God and others, struggles to resolve his homosexuality and his Christian beliefs. Ultimately, this honest account is as story of resolution, the impact the author’s courage has on others and what it means to live authentically.

“Human stories, like the one in these pages, play a part in advancing understanding and acceptance. It is the story of a quest to find not only self-acceptance but one of the most powerful forces in nature-human love..”

These are the passionate despatches of a reporter from one of the most hostile – for gay men and women – regimes on earth: the Catholic church. Michael Kelly has come out but stayed in. His indictment of the church is stark but his vision of what it might become has the power to move even hardened atheists. – David Marr

Every chapter in this book is an invitation. Its thoughts and stories carry you over and over again into a deeper place where you can reflect on your own life and, indeed, universal life. At one point, its author observes ‘…religious talk is about religious talk. Life becomes a footnote.’ Life is never a footnote for Michael Kelly. His close experience of the engaging of religion with life is both challenging and inspiring. I couldn’t put this book down, not just because it relates to my own story but because it is authentic, vulnerable, yet life-giving. It does not demand that you agree, but gently and profoundly opens up the questions within a brave and faithful journey. – Rev. Dorothy McRae-McMahon

Michael Kelly writes with great precision and poignancy of a yearning which everyone shares. A yearning for love, both physical and spiritual. A yearning for completion. In this wonderful collection of essays, Kelly seduces the reader with his insights into those fleeting moments in which we encounter the greatest mystery of all. – Dr Fiona Capp

In these collected writings – essays, articles, letters, talks – Michael Kelly invites us into an intimate exploration of the inner wisdom and radical challenge of Christianity. In reflections that take us from the fields of Nicaragua to the ‘War on Terror’, from the joy of erotic pleasure to the challenge of rebuilding the church, Kelly gives voice to a spirituality of desire, grounded in justice and love. Michael Kelly is a freelance writer, activist, counsellor and educator, known internationally for his ministry in spirituality, sexuality and human integration.

This new book presents Michael Kelly’s collected writings and lectures, composed over a ten year period. Exploring contemplative spirituality, erotic grace, prophetic activism, gay experience, and the soulful challenges of contemporary living, this collection is a major new contribution from the author of The Erotic Contemplative lecture series.

BOOK REVIEW Deep spirituality underlies gay Catholic’s activismTerry MonagleMichael Bernard Kelly undergoes the personal struggle to reconcile his own deep faith with being proudly gay. He then takes up the fight for acceptance of gays in the Catholic Church.
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The publisher wrote:
A stunningly original re-imagining of the Catholic faith by one of the most lucid and exciting theologians writing in English today. Widely acclaimed for his work examining the fundamental themes in Catholic theology, in Faith Beyond Resentment James Alison offers an account of Christianity that is moving, liberating, and deeply personal, yet rooted in Catholic tradition.

This is not a book of gay theology but, much more daringly, of Catholic theology from a gay perspective, addressing both those who are not gay and those who are not Catholic, “people of whatever background negotiating the world of faith in the time of the collapsing closet”.

A radical call for major and profound change in the Australian Catholic Church, as well as a direct challenge to the conservatism epitomised by the Archdiocese of Sydney Cardinal George Pell.

Comment
Father Ted Kennedy describes himself as “a sample of that endangered species – an Australian Catholic priest”. He is that, but he is more and even rarer. For what speaks to the reader in this book is the authentic, singular voice of prophecy, a voice seldom heard in the Australian Church. – Professor Tony Coady